State of the art harvesters (e.g. combines) are used to harvest crops. Operations performed by these combines include chopping the crop and producing residue. The residue is either spread over the harvested land to reduce erosion, or piled into rows during a process called windrowing for later collection in a baling process. These state of the art combines, however, depend on the operator to decide when to switch between spreading and windrowing. This may require the operator to stop the combine and manually press a button on the combine controller. Relying on the operator to perform this process during the harvesting process leads to an increase in harvesting time, and potentially choosing an incorrect mode for a given region due to human error, or inconsistent variability in the change-over area that does not maximize the intended residue function.